Media News

Benin
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted Benin gains in achieving the Millennium Development Goals, particularly in boosting primary education, reducing mortality and bolstering access to potable water. Progress has been sluggish in the areas of sanitation, environment and food security, he added.

Botswana
An International Monetary Fund mission was in Botswana June 1-14 to review the nations economic progress and policies to ensure continued economic stability and growth. Botswanas economy will possibly see rebalancing in 2010 as mining activities gradually recover, while the non-mining sector is decelerating due to the withdrawal of fiscal stimulus, said Robert Burgess, IMF mission chief to Botswana.

Kenya
Kenya has allocated 900 million shillings (USD11.25 million) to buy antiretroviral drugs. AIDS activists lauded the move but urged to provide more funding as the money covers just over 1 percent of the USD959 million AIDS funding gap in Kenya over the next three and a half years. Another USD12.5 million has been earmarked to hire 15 nurses and five public health technicians in each of the country210 parliamentary constituencies, according to Plusnews.

Nigeria
The U.K. Department for International Development is alarmed that Nigeria may not reach the 2015 deadline of achieving the Millennium Development Goals, Daily Sun reports. Nigeria should take urgent and drastic steps to attain the MDGs, said Adesina Fagbenro-Bryon, DfID regional co-coordinator in southwest Nigeria.

After years of standing idly by as western oil companies fouled Nigerian rivers, dirtied the air, killed fish and birds, the Nigerian government, spurred by U.S. action in the Gulf of Mexico, is showing a little fight-back. This week, Nigerian officials threatened ExxonMobil with sanctions if the company fails to manage spills properly. Idris Musa, head of Nigeria’s oil spill response agency, said the meeting was to “call the attention of ExxonMobil, for the last time, to the need to put a stop to the incessant oil spills that we have been having within its operation area”. Musa told reporters after the meeting that his agency had since 2006 recorded about 2,405 oil spills involving all the major international oil companies operating in Nigeria. “The oil spills in the Niger Delta are more than what has happened in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Alagoa Morris, field monitor for Environmental Rights Action in Bayelsa state.

Sierra Leone
United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon concluded his five-country tour in Africa with a meeting with Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma and survivors of the countryscivil war. Ban also visited the Special Court for Sierra Leone, a United Nations-backed tribunal that deals with crimes committed during civil war, which ended in 2002.

Somali.
Recruited voluntarily or by force, child soldiers (boys and girls under the age of 18) are fighting in more than 30 conflicts worldwide - as combatants, messengers, porters, cooks or for sexual services. The north African nation of Chad, with 450,000 displaced people in its eastern areas, is beset with child soldiers fighting for both government and rebel forces. This week, a picture in The New York Times gripped readers with a heart-rending image of small boys, Mohamed, 12, and Ahmed, 15, holding heavy weapons, trained in killing by the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia. Because that government is backed by the U.S., it is likely that U.S. taxpayer money trained and financed these boys.

Sudan
Four Sudanese Islamists sentenced to death for killing an employee of the U.S. Agency for International Development have escaped from prison in Kober jail in northern Khartoum, a security source told Agence France-Presse. USAID personnel John Granville and his driver Abdel Rahman Abbas were fatally shot in 2008 as they returned from a New Year Eve celebration. A U.S. embassy spokesman said we have read those reports and are reviewing them. Meanwhile, Haile Menkerios, head of the U.N. mission in Sudan, called on the international community to support democratic governance and peace talks in the African nation. The National Congress Party and Sudan People Liberation Movement are due to formally commence peace negotiations in Ethiopia on June 21. The peace talks also cover a planned referendum on possible southern secession.

Zambia
Zambia will meet the Millennium Development Goal on education, a top government official said. Education Deputy Minister Clement Sinyinda said the Zambian government has started building five schools in each province and targeted constructing about 2,500 classrooms countrywide per year, and is currently reviewing the curriculum, The Post Online reports.

Zimbabwe
An International Monetary Fund mission traveled to Zimbabwe to help the government prepare its mid-year budget statement. The mission advised the African nation to limit the cash budget deficit to some 2.5 percent of the gross domestic product this year and improve risk management in the banking sector.

Compiled by developmentex.com & globalinfo.org